When She Was Bad
by Lorata
Summary: Even the sweetest pup will bite if handled roughly, and Regan is no innocent. The making of a girl who embraced her demons and turned them to her purpose. Written for Night on Fic Mountain 2014. (DARK WARNING: violence, torture, animal death, attempted murder.)


I murdered my mother ere I ever knew her; the midwife cut me from her abdomen while she yet clung to life. My nursemaid spun the tale for me one lazy afternoon, the sour stench of wine reeking on her breath. My mother perished but I did not, a shrieking, furious little thing, red-faced and smeared with gore. For a moment, said my nursemaid, the midwife mistook a mess of afterbirth for that most glorious organ of man's and pronounced my sex a boy. My father, in paroxysms of joy, then dubbed me Regan, a fitting name for the son who would succeed him as king, and called for a goblet of wine to celebrate as his wife's body cooled.

If only they had not bathed me; if only they had let the stinking remnants of my mother's insides cling to me until parental love bloomed for real, perhaps I might have kept it longer. But alas, once they explained their grievous error and handed me over, scrubbed pink and clean and smelling sweet as the dawn, I'm told my father scarce could keep himself from flinging me from him. A daughter he could love, but one he'd once thought son, even for a moment - ah, there was no hope for me, a mere girl-child saddled with a prince's name that bespoke a moment's joy and a lifetime ever-after of disappointment.

My sister Cordelia killed her mother too, but sweetly. Her birth was not one of blood and blades and screams; the doctors say she scarcely cried when they raised her into her mother's arms. They say Cordelia suckled of life's milk while the last breaths passed from the woman who bore her, that both of them smiled so soft that the midwife took some minutes to notice death's descent. Only when she caught the stillness of the queen's chest and pulled back the bedclothes to the sea of red beneath did she spy the mark of Pluto upon the waxen brow.

I understood none of this on the day of Cordelia's birth, only my mourning blacks itched and did not fit me properly, snatched hastily from my sister Goneril's wardrobe. We did not see much of the queen, and so her passing meant little to us but that we were scolded when we ran through the corridors playing at brigands and defenders. Goneril told me it had been much the same when I was born, though I rankled at the comparison and spoiled her gown when next I had occasion.

Dear, sweet Cordelia killed her mother the same as I, but she they hailed a miracle, a fitting replacement for the woman whose life ended as hers began. She must have bawled and fussed and filled her breechcloth the same as any other child, but not so go the stories. She was like the gods' own daughter; in later months Goneril and I giggled that Father must execute the nursemaids who washed her soiled linens for fear of spoiling the tales of her perfection.

I did not hate her yet, but that would come.

* * *

One night I stood over her cradle as the insects chirped a chorus out the window and her nursemaid - _my_ nursemaid, before Father gave her to Cordelia, when he had not taken Goneril's for me - snored in the corner. Earlier that day I had fallen while playing at knights and come to him for comfort, interrupting a meeting with his advisors that he might take me on his knee and kiss the scratch. He scolded me, told me I ought not to bother him with children's trifles when he and his men decided the fate of the kingdom.

As I slunk away from the table, humiliated and furious, the nursemaid brought Cordelia in, saying the poor little thing had not taken to her food today. I stood forgotten behind a pillar as Father stopped his precious meeting to lift a milksop to Cordelia's tiny mouth until she sucked. I fled before I revealed myself with screaming.

Later in the dead of night I stared at her while rage swirled inside me, far stronger than love had ever done. I had experienced sorrow, excitement, hunger, fear - a host of emotions, but none so all-encompassing as this. I thought my eyeballs boiled inside my head, that my blood had turned to gall and my bones to fire.

My hand moved to the edge of the cradle, pushed down to make it rock. Cordelia turned in her sleep but did not wake, nor when I did it again, harder, and a thought turned over in my mind.

It would not take much to tip the cradle and send her tumbling. The servants would blame it on the nursemaid, or perhaps a breeze; no one would suspect a little girl of such a deed. I swung the cradle until I saw the bottom; this time Cordelia rolled to the side and let out a soft cry, wide blue eyes snapping open in the darkness, and her gaze caught me and held me fast.

My hands fell from the edge. I could not do it. I could not kill my sister, even as the caged anger beat in my breast and I cursed myself for my weakness. I abandoned the nursery and fled to my room, where I sobbed in helpless, bitter fury until Goneril woke and threatened to smother me with my own nightclothes.

* * *

Little Cordelia, by some magic, ensnared our father's heart from the day her fingers first closed about his thumb.

Goneril and I whispered in our beds that her mother was a witch who traded her life to give her daughter such a power. Why else would a man with three daughters choose to dote upon the youngest when she had nothing particular to endear her to anyone? Cordelia was no fairer, no more cunning, than Goneril and I, yet she more easily drew his smile with little more than a toss of her curls than I could manage with an hour of cajoling.

Worse, she was perfectly fatuous, entirely unsuited to the daughter of a king at war. While Goneril and I conquered kingdoms, turned our playroom into Europe and divided up the nations between us, Cordelia preferred to nurse her dolls and play at caring for foundlings. She scolded us for our 'atrocities' committed against the traitors who conspired against us in our games, scolded us as though we had cut live tongues from real people's mouths instead of miming with twigs and bits of cloth. She would not make a queen of any country with such a weak stomach, but though we cautioned her against her softness, she did not listen.

And yet Father took her on his knee and listened to her prattle about the dolls she saved from imaginary illness, kissed her nose and smoothed her hair, cooing over her accomplishments as though she'd truly healed a village of the poorest of the poor. True, he smiled at us when Goneril and I extolled our victories on the battlefield, called us his little queens, but then Cordelia would pat his cheek and his attention turned to her again.

We tried, once, to play at physicians, pretending our dolls to be invalids while we spooned them invisible soup and stroked their fevered brows. After only an hour our tempers flared and we flung them into the dungeon to be executed for infecting the kingdom with pestilence.

I would win Father's approval, I swore it, but not by playacting as Cordelia.

* * *

I had just turned nine when Cordelia received a pet from a foreign minister who brought it with his retinue; a cavy, a small brown and white rodent with rounded ears and a long face. He offered one to Goneril and me as well, but we had no time for living playthings who must be fed and looked-after, and so we declined. Cordelia accepted hers with glee and named him Edward, and from then on she was seldom separated from the little beast. She brought it to the table at mealtimes, letting it scurry about the table and stick its noses in our food, and even Father shooed the creature away with a sharp word when it attempted to cross his plate.

He did not scold her, however, only asked that she keep it away from the dinner table, but that did not help us, not when she insisted on letting it loose in the nursery. How were Goneril and I meant to play our games with a little furred thing shedding and gnawing and leaving its waste all over our toys? We begged Father to take it away, but he only chuckled and told us it would not live forever. Be patient, he said; it will die soon enough, and he would hardly send men to New Spain to procure another.

"I will not be hostage to this vermin," Goneril hissed to me that night, pale in the torchlight and shaking with fury. "We must be rid of it."

"How?" I asked her. "Cordelia will not be parted from it. As long as she keeps it from Father, he will not force her."

"Fie!" Goneril spat. "If we will not be free until it dies, then all we need is hasten the lucky day." Her eyes glowed, and she sat up and gripped me tight. "We must kill it ourselves. Tonight. I won't have it poking its nasty little nose into my things any longer!"

She pulled on her robe and stalked from the room, a furious wraith in a nightcap and shining curls, and I followed as though attached by a tether. My stomach twisted but so too my heart pounded, and not entirely from fear. For once we would not be subject to Cordelia's whims or our father's over-tolerance; for once we would take action. Not just directing wooden knights and imprisoning dolls for imaginary crimes, but a real strike against a real enemy living in our home.

Goneril always invented the best games to play, and this time she had outdone herself. We crept through the halls to Cordelia's nursery, slipped past her sleeping nursemaid, and tiptoed to the cage in the corner. The cavy snuffled about, strewing bits of straw about and making an absolute mess; I would be ashamed to treat my own playroom thus, even if the servants who cleaned it would never say a word for fear of Father's retaliation.

Goneril opened the latch and lifted the creature out; it squeaked once, then flattened itself into her hand. I waited for her to tell me what to do, as of the two of us Goneril gave the orders, but instead she stood frozen, staring at the cavy as it nosed her fingers. Once it nipped her palm, and she let out a startled noise but soon clamped her mouth shut, clutching the furred body tightly.

"Goneril!" I hissed. "We should hurry!"

She stared at it, eyes wide, and as I watched her with my own narrowed to slits, I realized the truth; Goneril would not do it. She could conceive the plan, she could set it in motion, but when it came time to take an animal in hand and end its life, she could not, any more than I had been able to kill Cordelia. I recalled standing over Cordelia's cradle, how her eyes bore into me and made me helpless even as inside I raged and burned.

This time I would not be weak. If Goneril could not commit the act herself, that did not change that it must be done. "Give it to me," I commanded in a sharp undertone. Goneril scowled, and for a moment her mouth thinned as though preparing an argument, but she glanced down once more at the cavy and shuddered.

"Be quick," she snipped, as though I were the one hesitating, but I ignored her.

The cavy's fur brushed soft against my palms, and its little heart beat a frantic pace against my fingertip. For a moment I, too, held fast, transfixed by its dark, round eyes and twitching nose, but no. No. Life had given me a girl's body but it could not make frail my heart. I closed my hand around the cavy's neck and twisted; its body jerked, back legs kicking, then it stilled, going limp and growing slowly heavier as the weight of death settled upon it.

Goneril's breath came quick. "You did it," she said in a whisper, her voice tinged with glee and madness. "Quick, let us away before she wakes!"

I could not bear to feel the cavy grow cold in my hands, and I dropped it back into the cage. My heart trilled in my chest, and my mouth tasted sour as I reached in and arranged it in an attitude of sleep.

A fit of laughter took Goneril as we returned to our room, no matter how I hushed her, and at last for fear of the servants' hearing I slapped her across the face. She reared back, hand pressed to her cheek and eyes snapped open, and I rushed to silence her before she tackled me and pulled my hair as she did when we fought. "Someone will hear us," I hissed, and Goneril bared her teeth at me but finally nodded. I leapt at every creak, every whisper of fabric, but at last we made it back without incident.

Goneril fell asleep soon after, content in the execution of her plan, but I stayed awake, staring at my hands in the flickering light, for much longer. I could not erase the sensation of the cavy's heart going still beneath my fingers, but I thought of Father, standing tall and proud and unmoved like a granite statue as criminals pleaded for clemency at his feet. He did not flinch at ordering the execution of a repeated thief; his daughter must not cry herself to sleep over the death of a mere rodent.

I screwed shut my eyes and held fixed in my mind Father's image, resolute and just, and with that I drifted to sleep.

Come breakfast Cordelia wept over the untimely death of her pet, and suffered all of us to attend a funeral. Goneril and I did not so much as exchange knowing glances, and we stood side by side in our best mourning blacks as Cordelia dug a hole and laid the small, blanket-wrapped body in it. Goneril even offered to give a eulogy, and talked most prettily of animal devotion and the surety of Edward's presence in the gods' dwelling whilst Cordelia dripped tears onto the ground.

At luncheon Father offered Cordelia one of his hunting hounds to name, but she said she would not take another, her heart too broken to allow another creature the opportunity to rend it further. I kept my eyes on my plate and very carefully did not smile.

* * *

In the heat of summer, my father's men caught a traitor, a foreign spy who had secreted himself amongst our staff to carry secrets back to his home kingdom. Father called us in to witness the confession, wrested from the man by the most skilled torturers. We his daughters stood in a line behind the throne whilst the man whimpered and cringed and made the basest apologies that fooled not I, let alone Father. I passed my eye over the interrogator's marks - the twisted, crumpled fingers; the missing teeth; the bloodied, empty eye socket - and wondered which of them had been the one to break him.

Father raised his chin even as he looked down at the traitor, and I imitated him as best I could, my shoulders square and back straight. "And so you ask for mercy," Father said, his voice ringing in the hall. "You, who abused my goodwill, who threatened my kingdom, who would see my daughters strangled and left rotting in a ditch!" At my side Cordelia flinched, but I did not; Father laid a hand upon my head, and I tried to make myself taller that I might feel its weight all the more.

"In truth, I have hit upon an idea," Father said, as the man cowered and flung himself to the floor. "You would not have spared my daughters by your actions, and so it is to them that I leave your fate." He turned to us - Goneril on his left, Cordelia and myself on his right - and offered us a deaths-head smile. "Well, my daughters? What say you?"

"Father, no!" Cordelia burst out, and she actually moved - would have broken her place and run to him! - but that I gripped her wrist and held her fast. "Father, you must show mercy."

For the first time in my life, Father looked at Cordelia with the same flat-lipped disappointment he so often sent to me. "Goneril?" he asked idly.

"No," Goneril said in a voice of ice and steel. "A king shows mercy when it's due, but that is not for spies and traitors."

Father inclined his head. "It seems we are at an impasse. Well, Regan, it appears you are the decider. Shall we show mercy, or make an example?"

In truth, Father would not hinge his decision on a vote cast by his three children; this was not, as Cordelia appeared not to understand, an opportunity for us to shape policy, but to show him that we aligned ourselves with him. For his daughters to prove our worth as potential successors, our willingness to undertake the mantle of responsibility that would one day fall on us as the wives of powerful men. My words, whichever way they fell, would not affect this man's fate one way or another, but they could, perhaps, convince Father to love me.

"An example," I said, and I did not look at Father for approval but kept my gaze fixed straight ahead. Cordelia gasped and tried to pull away but I tightened my grip, fingers digging in until the bones of her wrist creaked. "We are strong as the kingdom is strong."

"From the mouth of a child, thus is wisdom born," Father said, and I kept my expression steady even as I burst with pride. "It will be so. Take the knave away; he will hang at dawn."

Father invited us to watch the hanging. Cordelia outright refused, retiring to her nursery to soak her pillows with useless, womanish tears. Goneril said she would attend, but when the sun streaked the morning sky and the clouds soaked red with blood, she changed her mind and claimed a headache, a stomachache, a thousand ailments that required her to remain abed. And so I alone stood with Father on the balcony as the executioner looped the rope around the traitor's neck.

The men working the scaffold gripped the wheel and began to turn; the rope tightened and the traitor's body lifted, his feet scrambling for purchase and finding none. He kicked and struggled, and my mind flashed back to one afternoon when, bored with my studies, I watched a spider trap an insect in its web. The fly had shivered at the end of its silken rope, twitching and convulsing until I, sickened, forced myself back to my books.

Now slow horror crept up my spine, and my insides set to tumbling like the night Goneril and I rid ourselves of Cordelia's little cavy, but I would not be bound by the infirmity of my sex as was Cordelia. I turned my face upward; I dug my nails into my palms and welcomed the sting, as it kept my mind from drifting.

Some thirty minutes we stood; twice they lowered him, twice the physician pressed two fingers to his throat and shook his head, and twice they raised him back to dangle in the air. At last a _crack_ reverberated through the air and the man went limp, one foot twitching idly before falling still. The body twisted slowly, the rope creaking as the workmen turned the wheel the other way to bring it down.

A strange pressure built up inside me, pushing out through my eyes and my chest until my breath came short and my vision blurred. I thought that I might faint, and I would not - could not - humiliate myself so, but tremors wracked my body until it took all my strength just to stand. Then Father's hand closed upon my shoulder. "You were strong to watch that," he said, and the feeling fled. "I'm proud of you. You might make a queen someday."

And just like that, the dead traitor held no power over me, even as his limbs flopped and his head lolled to the side while the men carried him from the scaffold. My father was proud - I had made him proud - while Cordelia and even Goneril hid inside. "That's all I ever want," I said, wrestling my voice steady, and Father tweaked the ends of my hair.

* * *

Cordelia sulked for a week, wandering the castle like a wounded ghost, trailing her doll behind her on the ground as she clung listlessly to one arm. Goneril joined me in my disdain, and I pretended as though she'd stood next to Father and me instead of cringing in her room like a coward. As much as I enjoyed basking in my own superiority, it did not provide a partner for my games or give me suggestions for how to spend a rainy afternoon when the drizzle clung wet and humid to the paving stones and trapped us inside, and so I remained silent.

Father noticed Cordelia's mood after a few days and immediately sought to court her, plying her with sweets and fruit and dresses until at last she relented and returned to sit at his knee. I gritted my teeth but allowed it to wash over me; I had proven my mettle and Cordelia had not. She might feast on sugared plums now, but when I became queen I would eat fresh figs until I burst and never share a single one no matter how she begged.

A queen might show mercy when it's due, but that is not for spies and traitors - nor for little sisters.

* * *

The spring after I turned fourteen, Roderick of Essex kissed me under a shower of honeysuckle. The scent of the flowers hung heavy in the air and clung to his lips, for we had sucked the nectar from the blossoms before he leaned in and pressed his mouth to mine. He kept his hands feather-light upon my wrists, yet his touch so burned my skin that after he released me I checked my forearms for finger-marks like brands. I could not explain my disappointment when I found nothing, only that my good sense had left me and yet I did not care.

Roderick was a minor son of a minor man, but that did not affect me; as daughter of the king, I need not seek out a powerful husband to raise my station. I might marry whom I chose, for it was he who would benefit. Not that I thought much of marriage, standing together beneath the bower half-hidden by the twisting vines; it was a hazy notion, faraway and unimportant, far less relevant than the green flecks in the middle of Roderick's brown eyes or the twist to his mouth when he ordered a servant to dance for our amusement.

Four days we spent together, ducking through the gardens and laughing as we slipped my maid's prying eyes. We trapped butterflies to watch them beat themselves to exhaustion against our cupped palms; set them free and laughed while they staggered through the air like drunkards, then smeared the coloured dust from their wings upon each other's cheeks. In those four days I felt I could be a girl and royal both, that I need not abandon my sex to feel the passion of life; Roderick cheered me on when I told him of my plans to govern the kingdom and said he had never in his life seen one so regal as I.

Cordelia caught us when we ducked behind the rose wall. Her startled gasp alerted me, and before she could scream for a servant I had her up against the wall with my hand around her throat. "Tell no one," I snarled, and behind me Roderick's solid presence gave me strength. "Especially not Father. I need time to make case to him. If you breathe a word to him I will creep upon you in your sleep and stifle the very breath from your body, do you understand?"

Cordelia nodded, eyes wide and blue and frightened, and I stepped back and reached for Roderick's hand. "You needn't threaten me," Cordelia said, and were she not my pious sister I would say she sounded peevish. "I think it's lovely. You deserve to be happy."

I narrowed my eyes at her, but Cordelia had never been a liar; one more deficiency that made her a poor choice for Father's successor. "Do you promise?" I pressed her. "For if Father hears of it, I have already made mine."

"I promise," Cordelia said earnestly. "Not a word to Father."

The next day Father treated me with coolness as we breakfasted, and drew me aside once the meal was finished. "The boy and his father have returned to Essex," he said without preamble, and the world collapsed beneath me. "My dear daughter, you cannot waste yourself on rabble such as this; you are meant for greater things, and greater men. I have plans for you, and they do not include those who are unworthy."

For a half-crazed moment I thought that I would fling myself at his feet and proclaim my love for Roderick, entreat Father to give us the chance to be together. But I did not love Roderick, not deep in my heart and soul, and I did not so much mind profaning that deep emotion save that it would avail me of nothing. Instead I unbent my spine and raised my head. "Yes, Father," I said, and chased away the memory of Roderick's hair, curling soft around my fingers as we kissed.

"Has he trifled with you?" Father asked, giving me a hard look.

I could not swallow the flash of anger ere it swept across my face. "He has not," I snapped, struggling to regain my temper. "Do you think me so stupid, Father? Shall we summon a physician to examine me?"

Father paled, but then his mouth twitched in grim amusement. "That will not be necessary," he said. "See that there is no more of this foolishness, my girl, and I promise you a marriage much better than this."

I thanked him, turned and walked most calmly to our rooms, where I found Cordelia and ripped two handfuls of hair from her scalp before Goneril pulled me away.

"You lying whore!" I howled, struggling as Goneril hooked her arms about my shoulders and held on tight. Cordelia gaped up at me from the floor in shock, her hand pressed to her bleeding scalp. I heaped abuses on her until the spittle flew from my mouth and my vision blurred from lack of breath.

"Be quiet!" Goneril hissed in my ear. "Do you want the entire castle to hear you disgrace yourself with such a display?"

I ignored her, aiming a kick at Cordelia though she cringed away in time. "You promised me! How long did you wait before going back on your word? An hour? Two? Or did you run straight to Father like the little worm you are?"

"I didn't!" Cordelia gasped out, tears spilling over her cheeks. "I promised I wouldn't tell Father, and so I told him nothing!"

"Then how?" I demanded. "Unless you mean to tell me that Father spied on me himself!"

Cordelia shook and pressed herself back against the wall. "I don't know! I only told Goneril so she might be happy for you too -"

I whirled, and Goneril released me. She regarded me flat-eyed, her mouth an unforgiving line, and my eyes stung even as I blinked them fast. "Why?" I asked her, unable to find the energy to spit and claw as I had with Cordelia. Goneril was my elder, my protector; I followed her, gave her my loyalty, even if I knew myself to be above her equal in quality.

Her eyes flashed, and she held her hands straight at her sides, fingers twitching. "I told Father," she said, and I staggered back a step. "You needed to be stopped before you ruined yourself for some girlish fantasy! We are princesses, not farmer's daughters; we do not roll in the hay with stable boys, and we do not kiss middling noblemen in rose gardens."

And yet, as I stared at her, I knew her words to be a lie. It was not honour that moved her tongue and compelled her to betray me; no sisterly affection drove her to beg my father to spare me from youthful folly. I read jealousy in the curl of her lip and set of her eyes; jealousy that I, the younger, had found some private happiness when she had not.

"Dear sister," I said, drying my eyes and contorting my face into a smile. "I thank you for your consideration. It must have pained you to know how you would wound me, but you did so for my own sake. For that I thank you."

Goneril said nothing, and I turned my back and knelt by Cordelia's side. She was a stupid, stupid girl, but this time I could not fault her. I would have told Goneril myself, soon enough, and at least now I bought the knowledge of her loose tongue for a price that would not impoverish me. "Come," I said, holding out my hand. "We must have that seen to."

As I combed Cordelia's hair and dabbed the last of the blood away, I thought of my elder sister. I had oft dismissed Goneril in private, for she had the mind but not the stomach for the harder duties of ruling, but I had fallen hard upon my error. She might not have the heart to kill an animal or watch a traitor hang, but she could turn upon her sister, the one who supported her in all things, simply because that sister had found something beyond her reach.

In that moment Goneril had ceased to be my companion; the knife's edge of competition slid between us, and as one breath left me and the next one entered I knew we could never be the same again.

* * *

After the initial shock, the revelation that I couldn't trust Goneril turned out to be not much of one after all. We were comrades in arms when it came to Cordelia, united against a common foe who didn't even know she sought to destroy us, but other than that - well, there could only be one queen, and we both knew from toddling age that Father's love was not a flame, growing more with each lit candle.

Goneril and I could work together to a purpose, but our alliance would always have an expiration. In the end, becoming aware of that meant very little. She might have herself in mind but so did I, and at least the two of us never pretended otherwise. We might manipulate and lie and couch our true feelings with cunning, but we never played at innocence like Cordelia, who acted as though a base thought had never entered her mind.

Goneril remained unwed well into the marriageable age, for one of a hundred reasons. Perhaps Father wished to keep his daughters close as long as possible, but more likely, he hadn't found the right man to curry favour by offering up his oldest daughter. Sons might be heirs but daughters were investments, he told me once, when I still could not quite wipe the lingering touch of Roderick's lips from my skin. He would not spend his precious currency so lightly.

After a few years, as Goneril grew ever more beautiful and her dowry all the more prized, men began to crowd her, filling Father's rooms with promises until we could scarcely breathe for the stink of them. Goneril eyed them with a practiced mix of disdain and calculation, discarding this one and elevating that one while I sat back and watched her classify them.

This would be me, one day, but not until Father chose a husband for Goneril. The second could not outrun the first, and I had time.

One evening at dinner, Father laid down his goblet. "Daughters," he said, and Goneril straightened in her chair, fingers tightening over the handle of her knife. "What do you think of Albany?"

Goneril's face paled, and even I choked on my wine. Albany? The young duke, fresh come into the title after the recent death of his father, had nothing to recommend him. I could not even call up an accurate picture of his face because he was neither handsome nor unhandsome, only inoffensively bland. He never interrupted, barely even spoke, and finished all his sentences with a disgusting upward lilt as though he sought approval for every word that left his mouth.

Albany, for Goneril. Even at my angriest I could not wish that upon her - and worse, if the eldest daughter, by default the one with the highest prospects, could rate no more than that mewling mother's son, what hope had I of making a worthy match?

"I think him sweet," Cordelia answered into the silence, actually speaking as though the question had anything to do with her. "He likes the gardens very much."

The gardens. Had the man nothing more to recommend him than a love of flowers like any brainless maid? I exchanged a glance with Goneril, who turned her knife downward and pressed it against the edge of her plate in a slow, steady motion.

"He has made important strides in negotiations with our enemies," Father said, and I held back a snort. Negotiations, of course. Nothing stirred a maiden's heart more than talk of her future husband's skill with _negotiation_. "I think it would behove us all for you to get to know him, Goneril."

Goneril kept her mouth pinched flat and exhaled through her nose, the nostrils flaring and knuckles turning white as she struggled to control herself. "I will do as my lord commands," she said, but for once she did not sound sincere.

Father raised his eyebrows. "You find fault with this man?"

"No, my lord," Goneril said immediately, her eyes flashing before she cast them demurely down. "No fault at all, nor praise, either."

It was bravely said, if risky, and Father's brows crept ever higher. "Then you can make no complaint," he said, and called for another goblet of wine. "I think he will suit you, daughter. You are not so strong-willed you need a forceful husband to manage you; you are the king's daughter and have always known your duty."

At that Goneril feigned a cough, and I as well, for only a man without eyes and ears would ever think Goneril weak-willed. Still, perhaps that spoke more to Goneril's skill as actress than to Father's powers of observation, and after her brief, sputtering outburst Goneril made no sign.

"I do know my duty," she said instead, and Father beamed. "If you wish the match, then I do not object."

That night I ran the comb through Goneril's hair while she stared at her image in the mirror, blank-eyed and grim-jawed. "I am sorry," I said at last, though the word sat awkward upon my tongue.

"It is not necessary," Goneril said, fingers folded together and digging into the opposite hand. "So he is weak; so much the better, for he shan't interfere with me. I might do as I liked with no heavy hand to steer me, and after living with Father, what freedom might that be!"

Freedom perhaps, but happiness I could not name it, and though I fought to compose my expression Goneril still caught something in my reflection. "Do not pity me," she snapped. "I was never such a fool as to think I would marry for love; a husband who will obey me and leave me free to my pursuits is as good as any. I would rather that than another brute who thinks that because he holds the rights to my marriage bed that he might worm his way into my life elsewhere."

Against my will, a burst of giggles spat forth from my lips. Goneril goggled at me in horror, and my hands shook as I plaited her hair for the night. "But just think," I whispered, that any nosy servants would not overhear. "What sort of bed might that man make? Do you think he knows how, or would he lie there like a fish and expect his wife to direct him?"

Goneril's eyes shot wide, but soon after she clapped both hands over her mouth. "Do not even joke," she hissed, even as her shoulders trembled with mirth. "Imagine if - imagine, should he ask permission!"

We collapsed soon after, arms around each other, and tumbled into bed with the coverlet over our heads as though we had reverted to little girls, girls more carefree than Goneril and I had ever been. "I shouldn't think it a worry," Goneril said in a low, traitorous whisper, teeth glinting in the candlelight as she bared them in a vicious smile. "I shouldn't think he has much of a foot at all, far less a good one."

We howled again, but after the laughter faded and night crept in I could not chase the shadow from my thoughts. "Will you be all right, truly? A life without love I can understand, but without passion -"

"What is love but a wallowing in mutual weakness?" Goneril shrugged. "What passion but an expression of the same? I will not weep for lack of it, and if ever the need grows too strong, I can always find someone who will meet it."

I thought my eyes would spring from my face and roll across the mattress like a pair of marbles. "You wouldn't!"

She pushed a curl behind her ear, careless and uncaring both. "Why not? If I marry without love and do not seek to consummate, then by whose authority am I bound? It is a marriage for Father's convenience, and so long as I am not caught, so it will stay. And if the milksop suggests otherwise, no one will believe a man who cannot form a sentence without checking for approval."

I could not bear the thought of a husband who begged permission before he touched me; I wanted a man who desired me more than breath. But flaunting my wishes, still open to me where Goneril's own were not, seemed too cruel, and so I did not argue.

As Goneril drifted to sleep I lay awake and made myself a promise. I must marry he whom my father chose, but it would not be a man like Albany. I would not latch myself to a dog content to nibble at scraps; I would find a man worthy, a man who sought power as a soldier seeks blood, and together we would convince Father not only to consent to the match but that the instruments of it were of his own design. I would not permit Father to shackle me to a man who could not inspire me, challenge me, incite me. I would not be Cordelia; but now I swore I would not be Goneril, either.

I would begin by asking Cordelia which of the frequent visitors to court gave her the shivers, and the thought set me to laughing until I had to bite the pillow. I chuckled to myself until sleep claimed me and dragged me away, and I dreamed of men with wicked smiles and hands that knew their purpose.

* * *

The castle quieted in the absence of my sister after her departure, an while at first I welcomed it, I soon found myself pursued by an inexorable, gnawing listlessness. With no one but Cordelia and her cloying goodness for company, I spent each day clawing for air as though I slowly sank into an enormous pot of syrup. Cordelia did her best to assuage my loneliness, but her suggestions that we pray, or take a turn about the garden, or see if Father required any tending as age had begun to inflame his joints, only angered me until I snapped at her to leave me in peace.

Goneril's marriage left me open to a new set of negotiations on Father's part, and with my sudden eligibility came new strictures that chafed me as nothing before. Father no longer tolerated my presence at court; where once he had found my interest in war and politics amusing, now he informed me they would make my finding a husband difficult. "No man lusts for an ambitious woman," he told me with casual disregard. "You must look to your gentler nature if you are to secure an alliance for the kingdom."

Gentler nature! As though those words held any meaning whatsoever; as though he had not stood with me and watched a corpse swing from the gallows; as though he had not all but promised me my husband would be king, and now he spoke of my ambition as though its mere presence shrivelled a man's manhood from a hundred paces. I left him, silent and shaking and gritting my teeth until my jaw ached, and I scoured my room for something to find fault with so I might scream at a servant until I calmed down.

I took to leaving the castle grounds and wandering the lower town. It gave me no small comfort, walking through the narrow streets as the people scurried about, living their meaningless, tiny lives and thinking on nothing greater than where to procure tonight's meal. I would never be a wretch such as these, grubbing in the dirt, and I tore my mind away from Goneril and her gilded prison, complete with idiotic mute canary companion.

That would not be my fate. It would not.

Lost in my reverie, I failed to notice a man pulling a cart of apples until I stood directly in his path. He ground to a stop to avoid running into me, but in the process the wheel of his cart hit a rut and the entire thing toppled. Apples rolled and bounced across the ground; in seconds, children darted like vermin from spots unseen and scooped them up before scampering back into their holes. The man stood - I did not stoop to help him, for it would only insult his honour - an a moment later he poured forth the most blistering attacks on my person that for once I had no rejoinder, and could only stare in shock.

As I gaped at him in startled silence, a man behind me called out, his voice stentorian and ringing with the familiarity of command. "What, you knave!" he shouted, and my abuser stuttered into silence. "Know you the identity of the woman whose worth you impugn with little more thought than a dog shits in the street? Speak carefully, for your answer will determine whether you keep your tongue!"

I did not turn and kept my expression neutral, that anyone watching might think his presence part of my retinue, rather than a stranger whose rescue might yet be unwelcome. If I did not acknowledge him then I need not be beholden, if an association with him turned out to be an unhappy one. He did not ask me to, instead striding forward and bringing himself into my line of sight, and for all my vows I caught my breath and could not release it if I tried.

Never in my life had I beheld a being so handsome. My memories of Roderick, coloured sweet by a child's sentimentality, disappeared like dew under the sun's blazing heat. Young Roderick, bless him, for all his posturing and swagger, had been a boy, but the man in front of me, eyes flashing hard in the sun, beard trimmed and chin held high, had left the blush and stammer of youthful clumsiness behind.

A strange heat rose inside me as I watched him upbraid the peasant, and the bystanders who had paused to gawk soon scattered, likely for fear that his ire (so well-spoken, so eloquently put, turning each phrase as a master butcher might his knife or a potter his clay) might turn on them.

"Were she but a woman, your conduct would make you the worst of serpents, a legless worm with a poisoned tongue," said my rescuer, rounding out his diatribe. "But she, this woman whose character you so grossly maligned, is the daughter of the king, and you are no more fit to speak ill of her than you are to wipe the grime from her shoes with your very lips."

He turned to me and smiled, teeth glinting sharp and predatory, and I took a step forward before I gave my feet permission to move. "My lady, I apologize I was not here sooner, to stop this man ere the filth left his unworthy mouth. I only hope you will forgive me for my negligence."

I smiled in return, closing the distance between us to take his proffered hand; the peasant on the ground grovelled, and I planted my boot on his outstretched fingers to grind them into the dirt. He swallowed his yelp, and that much I would give him. "I think I could forgive you this time," I said, as the gentle stranger kissed my fingers. "Provided that in the future you promise to improve."

"I shall do my best," he said, then turned his gaze downward. "Now what shall we do with him?"

"I believe he has been properly chastened," I said with an airy wave of my hand. I wished to waste no more time on a filthy apple-merchant now that my honour had been justly defended; instead I sought to learn more about the gentleman who had come to my aid.

"Oh no, my lady, while I'm loathe to argue with the king's daughter, I submit that he is merely sorry he was stopped, but not for his actions." He tilted his head one way, then the other, like Father's favourite hunting hawk before it took to the skies. "He ought to be punished. Rabble like this never knows when it's bested. He'll only harbour resentment at his humiliation unless it's beaten out of him."

This breath of fresh air could not come sooner after weeks upon weeks of Cordelia's insufferable morality, and without Goneril's guidance and propensity to spur me to amusements I would not have considered on my own, I had even begun to irritate myself. "What do you suggest?" I asked, as the wretch on the ground moaned and writhed in fear.

"Come," he said, hauling the man up by his arm and dragging him off into an abandoned shop.

As the king's daughter, I was no stranger to violence; I saw lazy servants beaten, watched insubordinate stable boys boxed to tears for the crime of looking the princesses in the eye or responding to an order with a smile too broad. I'd seen thieves thrashed and tossed in the stocks; and of course, that first execution at my father's side was not the last. Yet here, in the darkened building with my handsome stranger, I had the privilege of witnessing a man who took causing pain and made it into art.

And he did it, not for himself, not for my father, not for politics or to gain approval from his friends, but for _me_.

His low, dark laughter mingled with the high, keening cries and pleas for mercy; the room filled with the thick, heady scent of blood and sweat and something sharper, tangier, almost metallic. As I stood witness the heat inside me grew, pooling in my stomach and spreading out through my limbs. I did not faint, but the roaring in my ears and the rush of blood to my face made me dizzy, giddy almost, and I kept myself standing with one hand pressed against the wall.

At last he stood, and he flipped his knife in his hand so it landed handle out before holding it out to me. "Here," he said. "Cut out his tongue and I guarantee he will never disrespect you ever again."

I shook my head. I dared not look foolish in front of a master of his craft, any more than I would presume to pick up a brush and complete one of the portraits Father commissioned his artists to paint.

He chuckled, and the sound hit me straight in the gut and curled downward. "Here," he said, beckoning, and I crept forward and knelt next to him, avoiding the mess. "Take the knife and I'll show you."

Before I could protest I found myself reaching for the knife, just as I had with Goneril all those years ago, swept along by her enthusiasm and unflinching authority. Here too I trusted him, followed his lead almost before I knew I'd done it. His fingers closed over mine - the touch startled me, and the breath came hard in my chest as my heart skipped faster - and he moved our hands in unison, demonstrating the movement.

"There now," he said, soothing and encouraging, raising his voice to be heard over the gibbers from the floor. "I promise you, once you taste it you'll see."

"Taste what?" I asked, reverent and awed.

He met my eyes then, his bright blue, cold as the sky on a midwinter's day when the trees crackled with frost. "Power," he said. "You are the king's daughter. You could be queen. It's a shame for you not to know what that feels like."

Together, fingers twined over the handle of the knife, we cut out the traitor's tongue, and he was right. I did taste power, and nothing heretofore - not the finest mead or wine, not the richest desserts or the thickest, most redolent thicket of flowers - came close. In that moment the world exploded around me, and I thought that from this moment on every new experience would be but the palest reflection.

"There," he said to the whimpering man, wiping his blade on the other's shirt before helping me to my feet. "Don't tell anyone, now."

We escaped into the alley, and he tugged me into the gap between two buildings and kissed me until my head spun. "Who are you?" I asked once he pulled back. I read aristocracy in the hook of his nose and the sharpness of his cheekbones, but that did not necessarily mean that Father would approve and oh, _oh_ how I needed his blessing. "You knew me at a glance; it is only fair."

He showed his teeth again. "I am to be Duke of Cornwall," he said, and my knees weakened. For him to occupy that position must mean - "Your father summoned me to discuss whether I would elect to marry you. And I must say -" His gaze raked me like claws of fire, and I scarce held in a gasp. "- I could live a thousand lifetimes over and never find so fine a wife as you."

A proper woman should weep for joy to hear such a thing, but proper women do not cut the tongues from traitors. Proper women wait for happiness when they should snatch it from the skies themselves, and as such they scarcely ever find it. Long ago I knew which path I wished to take.

"I am glad you think so," I said instead. "Shall we return to the castle? I should not wish you to miss your engagement."

He laughed and held out his arm, and I curled my fingers in the crook of his elbow as we stepped out into the light.

* * *

My life until I married Cornwall had not been a joyless one, no matter what I might think on the days when melancholy pressed against me like a needy child. I had found my pleasures where I could, wrestled them from the grey stone walls and my father's disapproving stares, and made something of myself. But for all I had been satisfied, for all I had made do and convinced myself my life held meaning, in marrying Cornwall and leaving my father's castle for my new home I found happiness, real and everlasting.

Gone were the nursemaids and governesses and servants who frowned and sneered and reported every move to Father so he might chastise me over dinner. Gone, too, Father's ever-present dissatisfaction with me, the knowledge that he would have loved me more had I been a man, the sensation that every day I must jump higher and higher to reach a platform of his making which, once achieved, he soon proclaimed too low to garner his praise.

Instead I found a house eager and waiting for a mistress, and a husband who indulged but did not cosset me. He did not call my ambition unwomanly or remind me to lower my voice to the proper female register. He did not curl his lip and say a wife had no business aiding her husband in the capturing of more land, more favour, more acclaim.

He did not allow those servants who muttered against the changes I wrought upon the manor to do so at their leisure, either, as Goneril once told me that dear, simpering Albany oft did. He was not afraid to raise the lash or the cane, and soon the household learned its place and welcomed my authority as my husband encouraged me to use it. I knew no greater heat than when I watched him at his work, and at the end he oft handed me his chosen tool and allowed me to strike the final blow.

Our coupling, as I had expected that day in the street with nothing but his mouth on mine and his hands against my shoulders, left me rapturous. Were I a poet I still could not have put to words the ravings inside my soul, the fire he stoked inside me with nothing more than a wink and a smile that promised justice.

I felt for Goneril, on our visits. She ran the house, entertained the guests, and terrorized the servants with exceeding skill but without backup, without her lord's constant, wonderful approval. I wondered that she did not die of exhaustion for want of unconditional support.

"Still do I not require your pity," Goneril snapped at me on one such occasion. Her hand twitched at her side as though to strike me, but she did not have that right. Only my husband, and while we kissed with the blood of impudent servants cooling on our fingers, he would never raise those hands to me in such a fashion. "I would sooner lap wine from the paving stones!"

"I do not pity you," I said. Goneril slitted her eyes at me, but I spoke in truth. Such emotions sang far too soft and delicate for me; I did not weave my thoughts and feelings together with strands of gossamer, but rather carved them from marble blocks. "You will continue as you have always done, my sister, seeking the aid and praise of no one."

Goneril had never chased Father's approval as I had; she measured exactly how much (how little) we mattered to Father far sooner than I, but never let slip her smile. I still admired her, and even though with Cornwall at my side I no longer needed her leadership, still something inside me crept close to her like a child seeking its mother's skirts. When she glanced at me and her mouth curved in a smile, the knots in my shoulders loosened.

"I do not need to ask you about _your_ married life," she said with some asperity, but I caught the undertone of amusement in spite of it. "You all but sigh when you speak of him. It's rather disgraceful."

"Perhaps, but I could not be prevailed upon to care," I shot back, and Goneril let out an unladylike snort and flicked the end of her sash at me.

* * *

My life had become the perfect tapestry of happiness, but as black mould will devour even the finest fabrics, so too did Father's presence cast a pall. I still respected my father as any loyal daughter should, but the sentiment had turned brittle with time, and I feared that too much strain would cause it to crack. I could not afford to hate the king, not until his death had rendered my portion of the land to me, and so I did not, despite every effort he made to the contrary.

He descended upon my lord's home with his hordes of knights and servants for days at a time; they caroused and carolled and swept through the corridors, ravishing the kitchen stores and imposing on the maids. I begged Father to reduce his retinue - surely one man, even the king, could not require so many attendants - but he only laughed at me and pronounced me far too fond of silly, replaceable things like plates and paintings or potted plants that stank of piss long ere I located the source.

"Patience, my love," said my husband, smiling indulgently as I raged about the room, pulling pillows from the bed and hurling them at the wall. "He cannot endure forever. One day he will pass away and trouble us no longer, but we must remain in his good graces until then. Once he divides the kingdom, then may we harvest the fruits of our forbearance."

"If only he might do so tomorrow," I snarled. I had beaten two scullery maids that evening, but even their upturned faces with damp cheeks and reddened eyes could not soothe my rage, not today. It only incensed me, and I dismissed them both so I would not be bothered by their weeping.

My husband chuckled. "One cannot hasten death, but only wait, and it will come anon."

"Like enough, but not anon in truth," said I. "Unless..."

I did not speak in faith, and my husband did not shush me; he only laughed, caught me around the waist and kissed me soundly. "'Twere possible, my love, I would, if only to see your face, but no. The terms of his estate are yet undecided; what would we do then, if he were to perish and all his lands parcelled out among the lords and earls with no regard to who deserved them most?"

"You speak wisdom," I said, relaxing into his arms. "I will heed your counsel, as always."

"Soon," he said again, and we shared a smile.

* * *

Years hence, my father summoned us to meet with him. We stood together an odd gathering: a mix of daughters and their husbands, both current and prospective, mingling with Father's closest advisors and most trusted companions. Goneril and I exchanged glances, a mere flick of the eyes that scarce made contact, and in her queenly posture and carefully-arranged expression of neutrality I caught the same quiet desperation that had long seeped into me.

The others murmured together as we waited for Father to conclude his conversation with the odious Gloucester and the insufferably moral Kent. As was our custom when in public my husband did not touch me or offer any means of comfort, but his presence at my side infused me with the necessary calm nonetheless. Today, I thought; surely today, all my labours would come to fruition. Today I would receive my due, if the gods allowed, and the years of hated flattery and obsequiousness could finally meet their end.

At last, Father held up a hand for silence, and the room fell quiet. He raised his voice, beckoning forth a servant, and called for a map. I almost missed his next words as my heart leapt with joy, and my thoughts raced as a pack of hounds after a hare in their attempt to anticipate what means he might ask us to prove our worth. My husband Cornwall held the more prestigious duchy, and if words were called for, he could gild his tongue with silver far better than that fool Albany, who scarce finished a sentence without a stammer.

But my father did not ask my husband to speak, nor Goneril's either, and he did not make a list of their accomplishments or their holdings, nor ask them to present their worth to him. Instead he turned to us, his eldest daughters, whom he had for a lifetime abused and neglected, scolded and chastised and mocked, and fixed us with an indulgent smile that my youthful self would have bent the very hills to receive.

I had long strangled that version of myself, and if it came to pass that Father had settled all inheritance on goodly Cordelia, then I might do the same to him ere his guards could run me through.

I steeled myself for the demands he would heap upon us in order to receive even the blandest crumb of favour, but instead the heavens opened and the gods cast their light, for Father looked to us and declared he would give the largest portion to whichever daughter loved him best.

I could have shouted or flung myself into a gambolling dance like the happiest, most carefree of lambs in springtime, but I held myself aloof. Cordelia, honest little mouse, turned dark and sour as I had ever seen her, turning aside to mutter beneath her breath; Goneril drew herself up straight and tall and made as pretty a speech as ever she had uttered. Father conferred a third of his kingdom on Goneril in recognition of her empty praise, and in so doing handed me the keys to my reward. While Goneril might lead, I never failed to follow and surpass.

I looked at my father and recalled every slap, every harsh, dismissive word that fell as heavy as a blow, every day when I sobbed bitter tears and clawed at my nursemaids. The memories built up inside me until I thought I might faint from the force of them, but at the last moment I let them slip between my fingers. I dipped my hands into the years of aching torment as I might a bag of poisoned grain, and in my mind I fashioned the sweetest cakes that might ever come to kill a man.

Father invited me to speak. I swallowed a viper's smile - inclined my head, lowered my eyes and clasped my hands as any modest, loving daughter ought - and cast my net.


End file.
